Exclusive: Microsoft, FBI take aim at global cyber crime ring

ronjor · Jun 5, 2013

(Reuters) - Microsoft Corp and the FBI, aided by authorities in more than 80 countries, have launched a major assault on one of the world's biggest cyber crime rings, believed to have stolen more than $500 million from bank accounts over the past 18 months
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http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/06/us-citadel-botnet-idUSBRE9541KO20130606

fax · Jun 6, 2013

Broken Link... Working link:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/05/net-us-citadel-botnet-idUSBRE9541KO20130605

TheKid7 · Jun 6, 2013

Microsoft, Authorities Disrupt Hundreds of Citadel Botnets with ‘Operation b54’:

Calling it the company’s “most aggressive” botnet operation operation to date, Microsoft has joined with the FBI for a massive disruption of the Citadel botnet.

More than 1,400 individual botnets associated with the Citadel malware affecting more than five million people in total were disrupted, with cooperation from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and interestingly, a civil seizure warrant issued by the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina...........
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http://threatpost.com/microsoft-authorities-disrupt-hundreds-of-citadel-botnets-with-operation-b54/

Dermot7 · Jun 6, 2013

FBI and Microsoft take down $500m-theft botnet Citadel
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22795074

siljaline · Jun 6, 2013

Microsoft, with help from feds, delivers body blow to massive fraud ring.
http://arstechnica.com/security/201...eds-delivers-body-blow-to-massive-fraud-ring/

TheKid7 · Jun 6, 2013

FBI and Microsoft in massive takedown of "Citadel" crimeware:

Microsoft just announced the successful disruption of 1462 Citadel botnets, thanks to a co-ordinated effort between numerous organisations in the private sector and the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

You read that correctly: 1462 botnets...........
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http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/201...oft-in-massive-takedown-of-citadel-crimeware/

TheKid7 · Jun 6, 2013

1,462 botnets shut down by Microsoft, FBI and financial sector:

In a campaign code-named Operation b54 and authorised by a court in North Carolina, Microsoft worked with the FBI, financial services companies and other partners in order to take action against 1,462 botnets spreading the malware known as Citadel. About five million computers have been infected, with losses caused by the botnets amounting to about half a billion US dollars.

Microsoft says that it began analysing the Citadel botnets in early 2012. In the last week of May 2013, the company filed a civil suit that gave them permission to cut communication between the 1,462 botnets and the infected computers. On 5 June, US Marshals and Microsoft staff seized command-and-control servers in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. CERTs and government agencies in other countries were also able to take action against servers thanks to the close international cooperation between organisations, companies and agencies that was key in Operation b54...........
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http://www.h-online.com/security/ne...crosoft-FBI-and-financial-sector-1884174.html

siljaline · Jun 8, 2013

FBI and Microsoft break up $500 million Citadel botnet.
http://www.welivesecurity.com/2013/06/06/fbi-and-microsoft-break-up-500-million-citadel-botnet/

TheKid7 · Jun 10, 2013

Microsoft borks botnet takedown in Citadel snafu:

Stupid Redmond kicked over our honeypots, wail white hats
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Security researchers are complaining about collateral damage from the latest botnet take-down efforts by Microsoft and its partners.

The Windows 8 giant worked with financial service organisations, other technology firms and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to disrupt more than a thousand botnets.

The botnets in question were using Citadel malware to run cybercrime scams blamed for more than $500m in fraud. The action, authorised by a federal court ruling and carried out last week, involved raids at server-hosting facilities in the US to seize evidence related to the malware.

The takedown – codenamed Operation b54 – is the latest in an ongoing campaign against various zombie networks spearheaded by Microsoft...........
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http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/06/10/citadel_botnet_takedown_own_goal_by_microsoft/

siljaline · Jun 11, 2013

Microsoft not sorry for swallowing researchers' work in Citadel takedown
http://www.cso.com.au/article/464267/microsoft_sorry_swallowing_researchers_work_citadel_takedown/

siljaline · Jun 13, 2013

[video] -http://outsidelens.scmagazine.com/video/Microsoft-FBI-Team-Up-Against-3;recent-

ronjor · Jun 21, 2013

Initial revelations and results of the Citadel botnet operation

Posted by Richard Domingues Boscovich
Associate General Counsel, Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit

Just over two weeks after Microsoft, financial services industry leaders, technology industry partners and the FBI took action against more than 1,400 Citadel botnets, I am pleased to share that at least 2 million computers have been freed from the cybercriminals.

As Reuters reported, we believe this is a very conservative number. Our preliminary data shows that from June 9 to June 15, nearly 1.3 million unique Internet Protocol addresses have checked into our system (known as a sinkhole) from computers infected with Citadel. Currently, we are associating one IP address with one infected computer, but there could be multiple infected computers using one address. For example, preliminary results show that there were more than 1.9 million infected computers when we analyze unique IPs + User-Agents. A user agent is an application that connects to the Internet and includes things like browsers. Over the next few weeks, we’ll dig further into our data to determine exactly how many individual computers are associated with each IP we’ve identified.
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https://blogs.technet.com/b/microso...citadel-botnet-operation.aspx?Redirected=true

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